Tour De Georgia under way, minus Athens

Team Saturn rider wins Prologue stage

Posted: Wednesday, April 23, 2003

By Ben WernerMorris News Service

David Crites of Atlanta watches a rider make one of the turns Tuesday during time trials of the Dodge Tour De Georgia bike race through the historic district of Savannah. Athens officials had hoped to have one of the race's stages go through the city. The Twilight Criterium, an annual bike race in downtown Athens, starts this weekend.Stephen Morton/AP

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Battling a five-minute deadline and a tricky course through Savannah's eastside Historic District, Team Saturns Nathan O'Neill set himself up as the man to beat Tuesday in the 2.6-mile Prologue stage of the Tour de Georgia.

His time, 4:58:22, stood unrivaled and barely challenged for the rest of the day, earning O'Neill the Tour's yellow leader's jersey.

Each of the 18 teams set what order their riders raced. Many of the teams opted to load the starting ranks with riders who could report on course conditions to the time-trial specialists scheduled to race later in the day.

Team Saturn, though, had its first two riders, O'Neill and Chris Horner, finish first and second overall. Horner, the seventh, finished with a time of 5:02:55.

"When you start, you just blow out of the gates," said ONeill, an Australian who lives in Boise, Idaho.

Yet over much of the course, he added, there weren't too many places to go all-out. The route's series of 19 turns meant slowing down a lot. Negotiating Savannah's squares, though, wasn't as technically difficult as he expected. They proved to be more sweeping than maps and course profiles suggested.

Horner was able to give O'Neill a couple of pointers, but O'Neill, who was already making his way to the starting line when Horner finished, said he relied mostly on his experience testing the route Monday and Tuesday.

When he started, though, O'Neill said much of the course had been untried at racing speed since practice runs were hampered by rush-hour traffic.

"It's one thing about riding at 20 miles per hour, another at 35 miles per hour," said ONeill, a San Diego native who lives in Bend, Ore. "It changes your line."

Prime Alliance rider, Jonathon Vaughters, the last man to leave the start gate, crashed on the second turn that troubled O'Neill early. Vaughters recovered, but finished more than a minute behind the leader.

Third-place finisher, 7Up-Maxxis-team member Gregory Henderson, said one of his tires was losing air for half the race. By the last turn, from Bolton Street onto East Broad, he was riding on the rim to the finish line. His time, 5:02:80 still put him on the podium.

Dalton, Ga., native Saul Raisin finished first among the under-23-year-old riders with a time of 5:18:96. Looking ahead to Stage Four, which starts in Dalton, Raisin said he'd consider it a bonus to still be in the young riders leader's jersey.